Welcome to the Subscriber’s Salon!
This private page is reserved exclusively for my email subscribers. Here, you receive an advance look at new paintings before they are exhibited publicly or older paintings offered for a second look—along with the opportunity to acquire them at 15% below gallery price for a limited time.
The painting below is available to subscribers through June 30, 2026.
Choice Meats
The Lure of Neon
Choice Meats is an 11 × 14 inch oil painting, presented in a black metal frame.
Gallery price: $600
Subscriber price: $510—available through June 30, 2026
A Fateful Visit
Who knows when inspiration is going to strike you? For me, it was on a fateful autumn day when we took a friend who was visiting from out of town to Baltimore’s historic Cross Street Market, one of the country’s oldest public markets. I’d never been to the market before and was taken by the bounteous displays of fresh vegetables, fruits, meats, pastries, etc.
I started snapping away with my digital camera and ended up generating three finished paintings with the result. The first painting, Fruit Market, shown here, became the first painting I ever sold in an art show.
The second painting to emerge was Fish on Ice, which currently hangs in our dining room.
Both of these paintings were done in the Impressionistic style I was using then. I didn’t tackle the third painting to come out of that market visit until years later when I became fascinated with depicting neon signs.
The inspiration for that series of paintings came from the location where I was taking painting classes—Glen Echo Park in the DC suburb of Glen Echo, MD. The site was a former amusement park that had closed in the early 1970’s and then came under the management of the National Park Service and was later converted into an arts & cultural center. In the years I was there, the various buildings were being restored as were the old neon signs that adorned them advertising different attractions like popcorn, bumper car rides, arcade, swimming pool, etc. At night, with the colorful, newly restored signs all aglow, you really got a sense of what the amusement park looked like in its heyday.
Thus began a series of paintings based on neon signs, the first of which was Cuddle, taken from Glen Echo Park’s Cuddle Up ride. I returned to the sign I saw at the Cross Street Market and included that in the series. What drew me to the dozen or so neon signs that I eventually painted was that bold cheerful pop of color and light that stands out in the surrounding darkness defiantly taking back the night and insisting that it can be just as fun a place to be as a sunny day.
Most all of the neon sign paintings from that collection have been sold with Choice Meats being the final remaining member of the lot. Fenwich Choice Meats is still a part of the Cross Street Market, by the way, having established itself there in 1952 when the market was rebuilt after a fire destroyed the original market building.
The painting celebrates light, color and history and would be a perfect compliment to a home that does the same.
If this painting resonates with you, contact me before July 1, 2026 to reserve it at the subscriber price. As always, once you acquire a painting, you receive a permanent 15% discount on future purchases. Please note: For collectors outside San Diego, shipping is additional.